This week I've been looking at some new ecommerce awards down-under. Industry association, the Australian Interactive and Multi-Media Associations (AIMIA) AMBER awards and Smart Company's web awards.
Regrettably, some of the AIMIA awards, such as best online retailer, are unlikely to produce credible results.
A flawed process of nomination has produced a list of 20 contenders, probably half of whom should not be on the list at all. And some who definitely should be included are not.
Moreover the judging process is not transparent, and the results are going to be partly refelct and online poll, with all the usual issues associated with such polls.
(Such as multiple voting by contenders themselves and their associates)
Of course, in as much as the awards are primarily marketing gimmicks for their promoters, their lack of credibility is neither here nor there.
And the winners will doubtless get plenty of marketing value out of their awards.
But it is disappointing that the awards won't be credible and true high achievers in online retail down-under won't get due credit or recognition for their efforts.
The Smart Company web-awards, which also includes a best ecommerce site category, is also problematic, but for different reasons.
This time the self-nomination process involves a set of questions doubtless designed to provide marketing leads to the award sponsor, Webfirm (formerly known as Answearch).
Certainly it is hard to see why nominees should have to reveal their website revenues, and what bearing this has on the evaluation of which is the best e-commerce site down-under.
Of course, arguably some ecommerce awards are better than none, and so my criticisms might be said to be sour grapes from someone who could have, and perhaps should have created an ecommerce award with some credibility.
Or in other words, awards for most popular ecommerce site, most user friendly, most innovative and/or most appealing design.
